Murder of Elizabeth Short

Also known as: Black Dahlia

Active: 1947–1947
Region: Los Angeles, California, USA
State: CA
Kind: Single
Status: Unsolved
Victims: 1

Elizabeth Short, a 22-year-old woman from Massachusetts who had moved to Los Angeles in 1946, was found murdered in a vacant lot in the Leimert Park neighborhood on January 15, 1947, six days after she was last seen at the Biltmore Hotel downtown. The newspapers called her "the Black Dahlia". The LAPD, helped by the FBI and other agencies, ran one of the largest investigations in the city's history and questioned hundreds of people, but the killer was never identified. The case remains unsolved.

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Victims

We remember the people whose lives were taken.

Elizabeth Short, 22 · January 15, 1947
Born in Boston in 1924, the third of five daughters; she grew up in New England and Florida and moved to Los Angeles in 1946.

Timeline of locations

1947
Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland (Other)
Short is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.
January 9, 1947
Biltmore Hotel, downtown Los Angeles (Other)
Short was dropped off at the Biltmore Hotel on January 9, 1947. Hotel staff later said she made phone calls from the lobby before leaving. It is the last widely accepted sighting of her.
January 15, 1947
Vacant lot, Leimert Park (Recovery site, approximate area)
On the morning of January 15, 1947, a woman walking with her young daughter found Short's body in a vacant lot in the Leimert Park neighborhood. Her identity was confirmed through fingerprints by the FBI.

Sources

Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.